MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“Downwind of Wall Street Lies Long Island,” Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, April 24, 2010
Think of the LIE as a magnifying glass or a megaphone.
When Wall Street is humming, Long Island roars. But when Wall Street shudders or stumbles, hold on tightly now – Long Island is about to shake.
The economies of Nassau and Suffolk counties – not to mention the work forces, the housing prices and the public mood – are intimately tied to the financial-services industry. In a hundred different ways, its fate reflects and establishes ours. The business provides jobs and opportunity. And it plays out just as vividly – in layoffs and downsizings, in bankruptcies and pullbacks, in housing foreclosures and squeezed credit access.
So when Barack Obama came to Cooper Square on Thursday, he wasn’t just talking to the Manhattan titans Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. Whatever he said was going to echo eastward as soon as the syllables left his mouth.
He scolded. He soothed. And then he made plain: Yes, some new regulations are coming to reel in past excesses. But there is nothing Washington can or will do that will protect everyone who is affected by Wall Street – or even protect that powerful engine from itself.
This is good news for Long Island as the economy and Wall Street slowly recover. It will be bad news almost certainly the next time they fail.
The news, good or bad, always travels East.
WALL STREET ZOO
1. Bulls – optimists
2. Bears — pessimists
3. Snakes — poisoners
4. Dogs — biters
5. Pigs – stinkers
MATH MAJOR: Why does SUNY keep dissing Long Island? Here’s a telling comparison from the state U’s web site: Enrollment on the three LI campuses? 33,359. Enrollment at the system’s three university centers, 18 four-year-colleges and assorted “statutory” schools like the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell? 162,337. And that’s before the threatened deep-freezing of Stony Brook Southampton.
ASKED AND UNANSWERED: Will “Sponge Bob” work Allyson and Miriam into a future Heimlich episode? Call it “Squidward’s Clarinet, Allyson’s Chewing Gum”?…Aren’t there laws against this kind of thing: “Wyandanch Teen Gets Hand Mangled in Industrial Mixer”? Anyone mention this to the folks at Corinthian Cast Stone?…Lindsay calls Michael Lohan her “ex-dad?” Could an ex-daughter say anything colder than that?…Racist letters in the Nassau Community College nursing department? Isn’t nursing one of the healing professions?…Whose bright idea was the weekday rush-hour paving job on Patchogue Holbrook Road?…How many of the kids shooting hoop in Greis Park know that court is part of the reason Lynbrook is up for All American City – or care? Someone should tell Tony Kornheiser…East Meadow bicyclist charged with public lewdness — gel seat or no?…How ’bout this possibility: Kayla Gerdes was confused AND high when the Freeport teen ran down a Hempstead woman mowing the lawn?…
Email ellis@henican.com.
Follow on Twitter @henican.
ELLIS’ LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK
Brianne Link
For several years now, we’ve been following the equestrian achievements of Brianne Link, a horse-driven 11-year-old from East Islip. That arena demands enormous drive and focus from a kid. Once Brianne found a charitable passion, you knew she’d be jumping all over that too. Well, she has – for a community center and a medical project in rural Guatemala. Working with the nonprofit group, she’s raising money and flying south to help. Friend her on Facebook. She’ll tell you all about it and how you might like to help: http://tinyurl.com/horsegirl
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